


Reveal the Truth

by Theoroark



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Action, Angst, Body Horror, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-04 06:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15835749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theoroark/pseuds/Theoroark
Summary: Ana and Jack investigate in Oasis, and run into some old friends.-Illustrations done by @collophora!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you again so, so much to Coll for her amazing art. I am unbelievably lucky and grateful that she's willing to work with me <3

Jack takes some convincing. But Ana was never going to let this slide, if even a fraction of the things her informants told her about Oasis were true. And despite all his posturing about some war he's singlehandedly fighting, Jack doesn't really have much else going on. So he follows her.   
  
Though watching him sweat through his pleather jacket, she thinks he would have followed her a bit more willingly if it hadn't been Iraq in July.   
  
"What are we even looking for?" he asks, shifting to remain in the sliver of shade he's found on the rooftop. Ana resists the urge to roll her eyes. She had told him to change. She'd go down to the market and buy him something sensible, just to shut him up. But the surveillance in the city is unholy, and she wants to remain as inconspicuous as possible.   
  
"We're looking for kidnappings," she reiterates, continuing her scan of the street through her scope. "If it's happening, it's happening here. My sources say that non-essential civilians have been the primary ones targeted, and this is the poor part of town." Jack snorts at the last part, and she's inclined to agree. The street she's been staring at all day is so clean you could eat off it, not a piece of litter in sight. There's no homeless population she and Jack can disappear into– housing is a guarantee for Oasis residents, along with healthcare and a university education. This is miles away from the slums they've been operating in for the past few years, separately and together.   
  
But Ana notices how the people walking the immaculate streets always walk in groups, and how the bustle of the crowd seems to still whenever an official car comes into view. No one says a word about any kidnappings, but everyone keeps one eye on the omnipresent security cameras. Something's wrong.   
  
Jack's still grumbling but she tunes him out and focuses on a flash of movement she caught in a side street. A mother, a daughter, and their dog stop in front of a store. The mother's having some futile argument with the girl, who kneels down and squishes the dog's face– presumably in an attempt to make it look irresistibly adorable, but the creature just looks confused. The mother sighs, though, and heads into the store. The girl and the dog triumphantly take a seat on the curb. Ana smiles. Fareeha had sweet-talked her way into spontaneous treats as well. She feels for the mother.   
  
The girl's gaze is down, focused on scratching the dog's ears. She doesn't notice the police car pulling up but Ana does and her stomach drops.   
  
An officer steps out and says something to the girl. She nods affably but points at her dog. The man quickly takes the leash from her and ties it to a pole, glancing at the storefront the whole time. Then he places a hand on the girl's back and ushers her into the back of the car. Ana gestures Jack over and he must see the tension in her shoulders, because he makes no complaint as he steps into the sun.   
  
"License plate 8260961?" he reads. Ana nods. "Got it. Tracking."   
  
The car pulls away from the curb as the mother leaves the store. She drops to her knees and the dog pulls at its leash, trying to get to her. Ana does not need to be within earshot to feel her wailing. She's suddenly reminded that the scope she's using is attached to a rifle, and that while the biotic rounds aren't that powerful, that just means a slower, more tortured death.   
  
"Ana," Jack says quietly. She wants to shut her eye, ground herself, but she's not willing to take her eye off the car. He's right. They can save more by following this lead than they would by blowing their cover now. She doesn't want to kill anymore. Shouldn't want to kill anymore. Should be grateful to Jack, for reminding her, instead of wanting to snap that he's not her CO anymore.   
  
She waits until the car's pointed away from them and then stands. "You're still locked on?" she asks. He nods. "Then let's go."   
  
\-   
  
It takes a while for them to get into position– Jack's visor isn't exactly a GPS. They're fortunate Oasis fashion is ostentatious enough that they don't really stand out. Eventually, they're led to the Ministry of Genetics. All the government buildings are wallpapered in electric eyes, but by retracing the car's route, Jack finds an underground garage that's relatively unsecured. That night, Ana picks the lock of the service entrance and they duck into an office supply closet and stare at each other.   
  
"So we just broke into the most advanced and secretive government in the world," Jack says. "Now what?" Ana laughs.   
  
"Whatever we do, we need to do it before the president wakes up."   
  
"I think they have a prime minister."   
  
"Whatever."   
  
"I mean, they do have ministries, after all."   
  
"I said 'whatever,' Jack." He laughs, she smiles, and then they both grow serious.   
  
"You know she's here, right?" Jack says. Ana nods. She read about it back when she thought Gabriel was dead, and so she had swallowed all her old bile. But now that he's shown himself, she feels quite comfortable being angry with him for giving O'Deorain enough legitimacy to snatch a position here. He had argued with her and Jack that O'Deorain's results outweighed her unpleasantness, but Ana had never seen the woman output anything that was not, in some form or another, for her own benefit. That trait suited a public official even less than it did an Overwatch scientist.   
  
"If we depose her, that'll just be a bonus," she says. She tries to pass it off like she's joking. Jack sees through it, though, and runs his fingers through his hair.   
  
"She's not incapable of defending herself."   
  
"I know, Jack."   
  
"I don't like her either, but–"   
  
"I know, Jack." She sighs. "You and I both know she has something to do with this, though."   
  
"Yeah. Yeah." He turns his rifle over in his hands. "Do you think...?"   
  
He trails off and looks at her with wide eyes. Ana's heart sinks. She knows what he wants to hear. That Gabriel would never do something like this. That he may have hired this monster, murdered their comrades, nearly murdered Jack, but he would never stoop this low. And she wants to tell Jack that Gabriel's not that far gone.  She does.   
  
Ana stands. "We need to get going," she says. "We don't know when people are going to start show up."   
  
Jack nods silently, and follows her out of the closet.   
  
They make their way cautiously but relatively quickly up the building. The upshot of Oasis's surveillance blanket and preemptive arrests is that no one in the government seems that concerned about any criminals actually making it into their buildings. Ana also imagines, from what she remembers of O’Deorain, that the woman would blanch at any form of oversight. She certainly had thrown her share of fits at the very standard IRB protocols they had applied to her.   
  
Jack motions for her to stop, and Ana shakes herself out of her irritated thoughts. They're on the seventh floor, some kind of laboratory setting. It looks promising. He pokes his head around the corner and looks up and down the hallway, then ducks back to her.   
  
"This could be it," he whispers. "You okay splitting up? I go left, you go right? We radio if we find anything?" Ana nods. He opens his mouth like he's going to says something else, but he doesn't. Just nods too and surveys the hallway one more time before dashing out and to the left. Ana waits for him to be out of sight and when she's sure he hasn't triggered anything, she goes right.   
  
The hallway is dim and lined in black tile. Ana absently thinks that low light and porous material seems like a poor environment to conduct experiments in, but O'Deorain always was a poor scientist. Ana moves down in a zig-zig motion, checking the rooms on either side. A room filled with glowing computer monitors, a room filled with translucent hard light cages of rabbits, what looks to be an office, an all black board room with leather chairs. No sign of any people, or the girl.   
  
She reaches the end of the hallway. There's just one more door, a big, double one now. She looks through the two half-moon windows. It's a large room, with vaulted ceilings and desks lining the walls. In the center, cordoned off by a low square of tables, is a giant, pitch-black... thing. She has no clue how to categorize it. It looks to be bigger than her, it's floating in the air, and it's undulating slowly. It's not exactly a perfect sphere but its surface is smooth. She has no idea what the hell it is and it creeps her the fuck out.   
  
Ana shifts her angle a bit, and that's when she notices the feet. They're on the exact opposite side of the blob and so the feet are all she can see, but there's a person there. She gasps and ducks below the windows, and reaches for her radio.   
  
Then she pauses and slowly moves up to look out. All she can see are the feet, but the feet are telling her gut something. She studies them, trying to figure it out. They're only in socks. They're facing away from the blob. And they're not moving. She bites her lip. Even if it's not O'Deorain, it could be one of her employees. Someone who just likes to do their work in the shadow of an ungodly hunk of matter in their stocking feet. That certainly seems like the kind of person O'Deorain would fraternize with.   
  
But the feeling she has is the same as what she got when she saw the police car approaching the girl. And she knows the consequences of hesitation. She slowly opens the door, wincing at its creak, and steps into the room. Whoever they are, they don't move or say anything, even though they must have heard the door open. She slowly walks across the room, eyeing the blob as she gets level with it. It doesn't react to her presence, but now that she's closer she sees it's being pulled in certain places, thinning ropes stretching out like taffy. She follows the pulls and when she sees the endpoint, she staggers in place, leaning on one of the tables for support.

They end up at Gabriel.


	2. Chapter 2

Gabriel is sitting in a high backed medical chair. He's wearing a tank top and boxers, and there are sensor pads placed all over his body, with wires connecting them to the chair. She can see his face again, and it's a bit better than it was last time– a bit more skin, a bit less visible bone– but now she can see the rest of his body too, and even though it's roughly the same, the confirmation is horrifying. His patellas are out, protruding pits at his knees. There are big patches of exposed muscle on his calves and forearms.    
  
He's wearing a breathing mask, and that's where the blob has ended up. The ropes are fastened on to it at the mouth, and not even in a particularly clinical manner– they've splattered slightly on impacted, gripping onto his face as well as the silicon, almost touching one of his red eyes. Ana stares at the mask and remembers the time she got tickets to ComicCon and Gabriel helped her with her Mad Max cosplay. The mask reminds her of the one they found together on Amazon. She feels sick.    
  
Gabriel hasn't moved. Hasn't done a thing to acknowledge her, even though she's right on the periphery of his vision. She doesn't know if he can speak through the mask, but he's not even looking at her. She should run while he's still in this trance-like state. She should call Jack.    
  
"Gabriel," she says instead. She takes another few steps, until she's in front of him. His eyes don't move. But he speaks, his gravelly voice muffled by the mask.    
  
"I told her not to take kids," he says.    
  
Ana stares at him, unsure how to balance her horror at seeing him like this with her anger at yet another one of his excuses. He keeps talking, moving his head a little now, sending ripples up the black strands.   
  
"I told her not to take kids," he said. "I didn't want her experimenting on people in the first place. Told her it would raise too much suspicion, that it wasn't worth it. I made the kind of pragmatic arguments that she'd actually care about. But she just went and did it without telling me." He laughs harshly. "And we're not command anymore. I can't stop her."    
  
"What are they doing to them?" she asks. Gabriel blinks rapidly and his brow furrows up. She'd say he was crying, but it doesn't seem like he's capable of that anymore.    
  
"I don't know," he says. There's a hitch in his voice. "Like I said, she doesn't tell me about this. But she..." He trails off.    
  
"Gabriel," Ana says. She tries to be gentle but she can't keep the angry urgency from her voice. "Please."   
  
He takes a deep breath. A corresponding shudder runs through the blob. "She does tests on me here. And she needs living tissue for those tests. So."   
  
Ana looks behind him, at the giant black blob connected to his mouthpiece. Sees the black vapor slowly dripping off him. Remembers the desiccated corpses Gabriel left in his wake.    
  
"Allahu musta'an." She's shaking a little and so is Gabriel. When he trembles, more of the black smoke wisps away. "Allahu musta'an."    
  
"I'm sorry, Ana, I'm so, so sorry."   
  
She sits down at his feet and he falls silent. The radio juts into her hip and it feels like some piece of debris from another world, the world where a little girl is in a government building waiting to be killed and dissected. Right now Ana and Gabriel are in some kind of just-off-kilter plane. She knows she has to leave here soon.    
  
"What happened to you, Gabriel?" she asks. He blinks down at her.    
  
"I fell apart."   
  
"That's not a real answer," she says sourly. "I don't want more cryptic bullshit, like what you gave me at Giza. What happened?"   
  
He laughs again, a bit more real this time. "I don't know, Ana. I woke up one day like... this." He waves a lightly smoking hand. "It was a disease. Some genetic malfunction from the SEP. O'Deorain was working on it. But then the explosion happened, and I died, and when they brought me back, the disease was all that came back. And then they left me."   
  
There's so much that doesn't answer, but she didn't expect him to give her any answers at all. She's a little floored. She stares up at him as he settles into the pose she found him in, eyes straight ahead, hands limp on the armrests.    
  
"Do you trust me?" she asks.    
  
There's a long pause, then he says, "I don't know how to answer that."   
  
"I mean– why did you tell me all that? Do you trust me? Even though..."   
  
When it becomes clear she can't finish that sentence, Gabriel sighs. "It doesn't matter, in any case," he says.    
  
She frowns. "What do you mean?"   
  
"You didn't trust me," he says. He doesn't say it like a response to her question or a question of his own. His eyes are still fixed straight ahead, but she knows if he looked at her she couldn't meet them.    
  
"But you trust Jack." Now he's responding, to her silence. She nods, and his eyes flick down to catch the movement. "Why?"   
  
She doesn't know how to answer that. She had thought Gabriel would try to kill her in Giza but instead he reached out to her. Because they had both been left behind, he said. She doesn't know how to tell him that Jack saving the hostages, saving what was left of their team, was the only salvation she could have hoped for. That from Venice on, she knew she could never trust Gabriel to leave her behind. She doesn't think he'll understand, and she doesn’t want to sever their last connection.    
  
In any case, it doesn't matter. Her radio staticks on, and before she can react, Jack's voice is coming through.    
  
"Ana? I found her. Left wing, second door on the right.” 

  
"Of course he's here too," Gabriel says to himself. The mask is still on but it seems like he's smiling. "Of course I'd have to deal with him too."   
  
Ana shoots him a questioning look but turns on the radio first. "Copy, Jack. On my way." She doesn't expect him to respond. She reclips the radio to her belt and stands. Gabriel tilts his head to look up at her.    
  
"Why can't I see him, though?" he asks. Ana frowns.    
  
"I don't know if that's a good idea."   
  
"Yeah, yeah, okay," Gabriel says absently. "Probably for the best. Don't want things to get weird."   
  
"What?"   
  
"I mean, I don't know how this works, really, but like... dreaming about your ex, that's always going to get weird, right?" He waves a hand. "I mean, hallucinations, they're probably different, you've been pretty normal so far, but like... still. I like just talking to you. I don't want to make it weird."   
  
The plane she and Gabriel were on goes crashing down. "Gabriel, you think I'm a..."   
  
"I'm glad it's you," he says warmly. He reaches out a hand. "I had a dream about talking to you soon after your funeral– just talking, just sitting and talking. It was so good. I cried when I woke up and cried again the next morning, when I didn't have the same dream. I'm glad you came back. This is good. Even if it doesn't matter."   
  
There are tears pricking her eye. "I have to go, Gabriel," she whispers. "She took a kid."   
  
"You won't be able to get her out," Gabriel says. He drops the hand. "You need admin access to open the specimen units." She winces at the phrase. "The walls are bullet proof, fire proof, everything proof. And neither of you are hackers. You can't get her out."   
  
"We have to try."   
  
"It's not going to work."   
  
Despite everything about this situation, Ana's getting annoyed with him. "Well, do you have any suggestions?"   
  
Gabriel pushes up the mask. The black strands shudder but he pays them no mind. He lifts his hand to his mouth and, with no difficulty, bites off his thumb. Ana stares, slack-jawed, as he pushes his mask back down and disinterestedly watches the digit fall to the floor.    
  
"You have five minutes, tops, before that thing disintegrates," he says. "So on the off chance you're not a hallucination, you better hurry."   
  
Ana bends down and picks it up. There's no blood. It's cold. When she straightens, Gabriel's eyes are wide.    
  
"Ana," he whispers. Somehow, his voice is even more hoarse. She wishes she had her mask. Some nasty part of her is thankful for his mask. She holds up the thumb.    
  
"I have to hurry," she says, and only just sees him nod as she turns tail and leaves.


	3. Chapter 3

She’s gone nearly all the way around the floor, so it doesn’t take her long to get to where Jack is. She finds him in a room similar to the one with the rabbit cages. Here, though, the cages are made up of hard light walls that reach up to the ceiling. It’s block after block of light blue, except for the unit Jack is standing in front of. That one is marred by a small, dark shadow pressed up against the edge. Jack quickly turns when he hears her footsteps, levelling his rifle, and relaxes slightly when he sees her. 

 

“Good,” he says hoarsely. He kneels down to the shadow. “Uh. Aisha. Habibti. My friend’s here? Can you try to help us now?”

 

“Can’t,” the girl says, then gives a hiccuping little sob. Jack rubs his hand over his face in frustration and Ana could almost laugh. He always was terrible with children. She rushes over to the cell. 

 

“We’ll get you out,” she says in a soft, steady voice. “I promise.” There’s another hiccup and the shadow nods. Ana looks around. “Have you seen something that could be a fingerprint scanner?” she asks Jack. 

 

“Uh. Over by that computer?” He points to the right wall. “Why do you–” Ana holds up the thumb and his jaw falls open. “What the hell is that?”

 

“I’ll explain later.” She finds what Jack was talking about floating next to the monitor and presses the thumb up to it. There’s a horrible pause where nothing happens, and then the pad flashes blue and the computer comes to life. She sets the thumb down and begins searching for a control panel. Jack walks up behind. 

 

“Ana. Seriously. What the hell?”

 

“Later, Jack,” she says. There’s a icon labeled “specimen units.” That’s what Gabriel called them. When she opens the file, she finds two sets of controls, one for a room with a small number of large cells, and one for a room with a large number of small cells. She clicks all the large cells open, and hears the fizzle of dissipating hard light behind her. Then, for a good measure, she opens up all the cells in the other room. Those rabbits shouldn’t have to deal with O’Deorain, either. 

 

“Aisha,” she says, turning around in her seat. The girl’s standing stock still in front of the opening. “It’s okay. You can come out. We’re getting you out of here.”

 

Aisha runs across the room and collides with Ana’s chest as she wraps her in a hug. Ana rubs her back. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “It’s okay. Let’s go.” She looks to Jack to tell him the same. He’s staring at the wisp of black smoke that’s floating up and away from where the thumb was. 

 

“Ana,” he says hoarsely. 

 

“Later,” she tells him. He nods and they leave, Aisha’s hand gripping hers like iron. 

 

-

 

The sun’s only just rising when they make it back to Aisha’s apartment building. There’s not a soul in the streets and no vehicles in a two block radius, so Ana feels comfortable letting Aisha buzz herself in while she and Jack watch from an alley across the street. Aisha rings once, then twice, stomping her foot when she still gets no answer. She looks across the street to Ana with questioning eyes. 

 

“Wait,” Ana mouths. 

 

Aisha buzzes a third time and after ten seconds– Ana counts– the video screen flashes on. Aisha’s standing in front of it but Ana knows what’s on it, knows why the girl’s friendly wave turns into a frantic calming gesture. The screen turns off and then, faster than even Jack could have run, the mother is bursting through the front door. She lifts Aisha up in a giant hug. She’s sobbing. Ana distantly recognizes that she’s crying herself. 

 

“Do you think they’ll come after them?” Jack asks as the two disappear back into the building. Ana sighs. 

 

“I don’t know. Probably. But maybe O’Deorain hasn’t clued in the other ministries, and doesn’t have enough of a reach to track her down. Maybe word will get out, and taking a child will have been bad enough that the people here start pushing for change.” Jack grunts noncommittally and Ana sighs again. “At the least, we gave them time to run.”

 

“Yeah,” he says. “We did.” They make their way in silence through the alleys to the outskirts of the city. The train they jumped to get here isn’t due for another hour or so, so they sit in the shadow of the platform and wait. 

 

“Gabriel was there,” Jack says after a while. Ana leans back on her elbows and tilts her head up to the sky. She knew this was coming, but she has no idea what to say. 

 

“Yeah,” is all she says. 

 

“Was it… did you…” he holds up his thumb and slices across it with his other index finger. Ana stares at him blankly for a moment, then makes a face. 

 

“No! Of course not! He. Uh.” On second thought, Jack’s suggestion may have been preferable. “Removed it himself,” she says, as delicately as she can. 

 

“He did? He was helping you?” He looks hopeful again and Ana would rather cut off both her thumbs than deal with that. 

 

“He thought I was a hallucination.” Jack crumples and it physically hurts her. “He was… she had him hooked up to something, it was some… treatment, or experiment, or something. He wasn’t in his right mind. He was…”

 

She doesn’t know how to finish that. The two of them are silent again for a while. 

 

“He didn’t tell me why he hired her,” Jack says. Ana sighs. 

 

“I know.”

 

“We were broken up, then.”

 

“I know.”

 

“But he was still so close to you.” He lies back with her and takes off his visor and sets it on his chest. “He practiced basketball with Fareeha and the two of you had your breakfast gossip sessions.” Ana snorts. “I would have thought he’d tell you.”

 

“So did I,” Ana whispers. “It didn’t make sense. We all fuckin’ hated her.” Jack laughs. 

 

“I know, right? And I thought Gabe hated her too. When he told me he had brought her to Blackwatch, my first thought was that it was some elaborate payback for the way she introduced herself to him– do you remember?”

 

“Well, first she asked where he was from, and when he said L.A., she asked ‘no, where are you  _ really  _ from–’”

 

“You shouldn’t be allowed to do that if you’re not from the same country as the person. I mean, you shouldn’t be allowed to do that at all, but you know.”

 

“And then when he said his family was originally from Mexico, she told him she had been to a resort in Cancún, and asked him if he knew anyone there.”

 

“Holy shit,” Jack chokes out between laughs. “The look on his fuckin’ face–”

 

“The look on  _ McCree’s _ fuckin’ face.” They lean on each other in laughter. But as she remembers O’Deorain, she’s suddenly incredibly aware of the rising July sun, that feels all the world like the one that rose in Egypt. They’re in Iraq. O’Deorain is hunting for lab rats in Iraq. The plane she and Jack are on collapses. 

 

“What?” Jack asks, when he notices her stiffness. 

 

“She’s experimenting on him, Jack.” He looks at her blankly and she laughs, humorlessly this time. “She’s experimenting on him and one of the first things she said to him was ‘no, where are you really from?’”

 

“Oh,” Jack says. “Oh.” He lifts his head from her shoulder and she lies back down in the sand. “Why did he go to her, then?” he asks. “He’s not stupid. He knew.”

 

That, Ana has an answer for. Gabriel had told them about how his parents had fallen apart when they found out about the SEP. He had been reminded about Tuskegee and Guatemala and Henrietta Lacks every day until he came back home, and they saw he was alive and well. He had said it in a joking tone, aren’t my folks so overprotective, but even if they hadn’t been as close as they were they would have seen through that. And she had seen his eyes last night. “He’s desperate,” she says. “He’s in pain. He wants to live. And he thinks she’s his only hope.”

 

Jack doesn’t respond right away, but she hears him take in a deep breath and looks over. He’s crying. Very stoically, like a respectably aged action star. Ana remembers Gabriel's strained attempt to cry and her one-sided tears and feels bitter. She's not sure who at.

 

“I should have done something,” Jack whispers. “Should’ve reached out when he started to pull away. Shouldn’t have gotten so hung up on a fucking break up.”

 

Ana shakes her head. “I don’t know if that would have helped, Jack.” 

 

“He hated me, when we thought you were dead,” Jack says. He doesn’t seem to be talking to her anymore, and certainly doesn’t notice how what he just said makes her stomach drop. “He blamed me for it. I should’ve tried to talk to him about it. When you shut off your comms, I should’ve–”

 

He cuts himself off there and shakes his head. Ana’s reminded of why she’s still by his side. As annoyed as she gets with his wallowing, she trusts him. He’s one of the few things left she can count on. 

 

“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s at least partly directed at her, so she nods. 

 

“It’s okay,” she says. “We know more now. So we can move forward.”

 

She doubts it works like that but bless his heart, Jack doesn’t call her on it. Just nods and lies down in the sand and wakes her up when the train’s approaching. 

 

-

 

The next time they run into Gabriel, it’s in a warzone. She’s taken the high ground, keeping a close eye on Jack as he fights off hordes of Talon. She sees the black cloud approaching and yells at him to run, but of course that means Jack just heads for the damn thing. Gabriel materializes as Jack slams the butt of the rifle into the head of the last trooper. Every soul but the three of them has fled or is unconscious. Gabriel and Jack stand across from each other. Gabriel lifts his head up slightly and she meets the eyes of his mask. 

 

He falls back into his wraith form. Jack spins around in confusion but Gabriel flies right by him. He speeds up towards Ana and both of them level their weapons at the cloud, but he passes her as well. He seeps into a vent near the ceiling and disappears. 

 

As they leave, Jack hypothesizes that Gabriel knew he was outnumbered, and didn’t want to start a fight he might lose. Ana agrees. She hates dealing with Jack’s bouts of hopefulness, so she doesn’t tell him how she heard Gabriel’s voice as he moved past her. 

 

“No more kids,” he had said. “Now we’re even.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @tacticalgrandma on tumblr/twitter, and Coll is @collophora on those sites.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and comments & kudos would mean the world to us!


End file.
